MrBlack

1 hour ago, villa89 said:

Why don't we add two more teams to the premier league, this give us 42 games instead of 38. Then we can have one of those extra games in Qatar, one in Saudi and one in USA. Then with the extra revenue the teams get they can use it to pay agents and players even more money because that's what's really important. Fans only care about how much money there is swirling around the game, trophies and integrity aren't important.  We can also play all league cup games in Malaysia and turn the FA cup into an Under 23 competition. Maybe have a break every 15 minutes to allow TV companies to show ad's, paint logos on the pitches and auction the players jerseys during every game so players have to put on a second jersey in the second half and then we can auction that as well.

All great ideas and I have plenty more. Like an official fish food supplier for the premier league. Put the match ball on a tropical aquarium instead of the plinth that's currently used.  

 

And the weirdest thing about this post is that I wouldn't put any of those ideas beyond the realms of what the FA or FIFA might come up with. 

10 hours ago, Zatman said:

Calvert Lewin goal might be some of the worst defending I have seen from a set piece. If Arsenal conceded that the Sky media clowns be calling them weak

Sky showed a stat just before that goal saying the the first touch after a set piece had been an Everton player from all of Everton's previous set plays. I think it was 5 or 6 in a row. Liverpool hadn't won a single first ball. 

Was a matter of time. Virgil was blocked from getting to the ball, but he's definitely not the commanding centre back he was. Doesn't seem to have the legs to do his runs now either. They're a club in decline.

32 minutes ago, Baldricks Cunning Plan said:

Cunha's arm was raised to as the Bournemouth player was pushing him. The Bournemouth player wasn't impeded as he then went onto go towards Semedo and put in a challenge on Doherty. It wasn't clear and obvious, the reasoning behind the overturning (the arm/elbow) is dubious to say the least, yet the same VAR official (Darren England who was on VAR duties when the Kilman header against West Ham was disallowed and for the Spurs/Liverpool debacle) and Attwell contrived to chalk off a goal. Earlier in the season at Fulham Attwell was on VAR duty when a Fulham penalty decision wasn't overturned as he couldn't prove whether or not contact was made on Tom Cairney, in the same game overturned a non award of a penalty for minimal contact on Harry Wilson after a few moments earlier ruling that a headbutt on Max Kilman wasn't hard enough to warrant action. I don't think that the system is corrupt, it is just the officials are incompetent and make up rules as they go along to suit the mistakes or the conclusions that they come to. 

I agree... they're seemingly not very good. Consistency is an issue, and their bias is always going to be a hard one to ignore. Luton fan should never be reffing a game of their rivals. 

Can't say I envy them though, the job is under such scrutiny and on a lot of calls you're going to get two different opinions if you ask the fans of the two clubs.

19 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

The same ref who didn't think it was worth another look on VAR for Forest thought this was...

Yes I did see that. Maybe his Luton bias did impact the Forest call...

3 minutes ago, RicRic said:

Everyone is slipping up now at the top, City will follow suit just watch

Kind of hope they do to keep it interesting and keep them all needing to beat spurs. But I think their dominance will start now with all the players they've got that have been rotated throughout the season relatively fresher than the Liverpool and Arsenal players. They'll win their two in hand and probably not look back. 

2 hours ago, AndyM3000 said:

How has that Wolves goal been ruled out? 

It got referred to the ref. I assume it was deemed he didn't see it happen and so was told that there was an apparent elbow he might have missed. Rather than the ref having seen it and judged it not to be a foul on real time that VAR wouldn't then overrule him on. 

Which really just makes you wonder why the ref wasn't asked to take a look at the last of forest's non-penalties where Young didn't win the ball despite the ref clearly thinking he had.

4 minutes ago, RicRic said:

Everton beating liverpool after Palace did so the other week yeah thats gonna make Liverpool not even concede another goal for the rest of the season now

Would mean spurs not beating them and having one less game to make up the points they need to overtake us. I'd take that. 

7 hours ago, allani said:

This is a completely unrealistic benchmark.  A 4th placed team about to go into the CL would in most seasons be one of the "Big 6" who have benefitted from 20+ years of finishing in / around the top 4, playing in Europe on a regular basis (rather than for the first time in 15 seasons - or whatever the number is), have built up a global following, have a history of big sponsorship deal (it's much easier to ask for £30m a year if the last deal was £27.5m or £50m) and / or have signed deals with "friendly" state owned / influenced companies.

If you want to benchmark it - then you have to look for a team that were playing in the Championship a few seasons ago, spent 3.5 seasons in the bottom half and have seriously impressive form for 18 months.  Companies won't give you £40m just because you finished 4th one season - they'll need convincing that you aren't going to crash out of Europe early and then spend the next 2 or 3 years of their sponsorship period stuck in mid-table achieving very little of note.  Having a track-record of finishing at the top end of the table reduces the risk of that happening and so allows you to ask for more money. 

Dodgy / illegal deals aside it should be much more difficult for Chelsea to negotiate their next shirt deal if they miss out on Europe this season and next.  Companies just won't be as convinced by their assertation that they are a "big 6" team who will be challenging for trophies.  But to try and suggest that they have the best commercial team in the world because if you compare their current deals with other teams finishing 10th and not playing in Europe would be bizarre.  So doing it the other way is equally flawed.

We can't benchmark it as there isn't really a club that's done similar. Newcastle would be the closest but their deals are skewed by related party shenanigans.

I dont think it would be a hard sell to explan who our owners are, their track record of successes,  that Unai Emery has consistently delivered European success at every single club he's managed for consecutive years in different leagues with lower relative budgets. You then use that alongside our current form and explain we are more able to sustain it than a Man United that are quite evidently toxic and struggling, an aging Liverpool about to go through a period of uncertainty,  and a Chelsea that will find themselves having points deducted if they continue to fail to qualify. 

He's had a job to do there, and he's done it, but you can't ignore the helping hand he's been given, or the relativity of our position at the time the contracts he's replacing were signed.

The issue we've got is I'm not sure there's a club we can compare the value of his deals to.

Newcastle's are inflated due to related parties. The other teams in the champs league next season will all be clubs that have been in it for most of the last 2 decades. The rest of the scum 6 that dont qualify are living off sustained recent historic form. And then you've got West Ham or Leciester as clubs that recently managed a season of success, but since then haven't pushed on or have gone significantly backwards. 

Looking Newcastle is about the closest to us, and what Newcastle scammed from their owners businesses, I'd say he's done an ok job with the contacts. Nothing exceptional.

It was easy for him to escape the Castore contract after their shambles with this year's kit. It was presumably fairly easy to negotiate a deal with Adidas with Nas' links. The shirt and sleeve sponsorship deals may have been a challenging get out without penalties (assuming they hadn't run their course) so fair play on those, but the value he's got isn't anything more than I'd expect given the exposure they'll get from us next season.

Yes, you can say he could never win.. well he could. He could have matched Newcastle's deals, and I'd have been impressed. He could have not launched a review of a badge that was totally fine and seemingly replaced it with a worse version of the crap badge we had before it, or done so and replaced it with something better. He could have communicated the cancellation of the north stand far more clearly and honestly, and had the website updated so it didn't still imply we were going ahead with it. He could have communicated honestly what was going on with the badge. He could have communicated the situation with the GA+ situation impacting holte season ticket holders earlier.

There is plenty he could have done to get me on side, but the good things he has done just aren't that impressive to me. Maybe I'm under estimating how difficult it was to sell us to Betano or how key he was to the Atairos deal. The jury of my opinion on him remains out.

9 minutes ago, rjw63 said:

Another sad cabbage helping boost our transfer fund.

Do we get money from away fans? Presumably only if they buy a drink/food while they're here?

Also, a warning about this stand. .

OK, I'm done. This could take over my evening if I'm not careful.

DCL!

4 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Another half spent watching and wondering how anyone can rate Darwin Nunez.

https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/best-strikers-in-the-world-ronaldo-lewandowski-harry-kane

8th best in the world according to 442. Note Watkins appears nowhere even though this was done in January when Ollie already had 15 goals (all comps) for the season.

Rooney looks absolutely horrific.

In VAR related news, why were they even checking that cross for offside. The lino didn't flag to call back play and warrant a check, and it was easily 3 phases before the goal. Liverpool had 2 chances to clear, and it was Everton's second phase of attack after the offside anyway. Worse than the one we had chalked off which shouldn't have been. At least it was deemed onside, but shouldn't have even been checked. 

Boo. Although United winning is probably good for giving Chelsea less hope 

1 minute ago, Genie said:

Everton and Sheffield United winning, who’d have thought it

I'd have given the team playing the one with a negative goal difference a chance before hand. Everton Liverpool derby game could make anything happen.

Man United. They're so utterly shit. Hahahaha

15 minutes ago, sheepyvillian said:

Remember we're now in a no excuses era. If we miss out on the top 4 it will be down to us as a team. Where do you get, "Nearly 2 full seasons" from? We was nowhere near the top 4 last season. We were close to relegation when Gerrard left and then by the brilliance of Unai managed to get the last spot for Europe. 

We have been virtually top 4 all this season, but 2 full seasons, I don't think so.

I see what you mean. I missed the word "Form." Apologies. 

 

59 games. 2 full seasons would be 76 games.

By the end of the season it will be 63 games, and by that time we'll likely have made over 15 more points that the team that averaged the 5th highest amount of points in the same time frame. And probaly 20 more than Spurs. If we somehow finish below them it would be bad luck.

I'm not saying there's an excuse for it if we do, just bemoaning our misfortune. We definitely deserve a reward for what Emery has performed with this squad. 5th place and europa league would be nice, but not quite what I think our form has deserved. 

3 hours ago, sheepyvillian said:

Why would it be "Absolutely Scandalous?" It looks like a foregone conclusion that we will, but even if we were to finish, say, 5th and win the ECL, it would still be one hell of an achievement. We would undoubtedly feel aggrieved somewhat, but I don't see how it would be "Scandalous," after all, nothing is guaranteed. 

Scandalous because we've maintained top 4 form for well nearly 2 full seasons, and it would only be down to unfortunate sequencing that means we don't finish top 4 in either of those seasons.

I'm not saying it would be a failure, just scandalously shit luck. 

16 hours ago, Brumstopdogs said:

 

This is why it would be absolutely scandalous if we didn't finish in the top 4. Thankfully I'm confident we will. 

5 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

There is no way a manager (regardless of how good he is) has any say into the infrastructure project of building a new stand. 

I'd normally agree with you, but it just got me thinking about how much control we've supposedly given him, and where the line would end.  If he's delivering on the pitch everything and more that's being asked of him,  where do we draw the line off it. 

Obviously sponsorship deals and other none direct football impacting things are out the question. But something like a stadium where we play the games that is a huge factor in our form might not be totally unreasonable. At the very least I'd be shocked if he wasn't consulted and offered a view that the owners would have given more weight than the average manager

1 minute ago, Jareth said:

Certainly not underestimating Chelsea, they are broadly where Man U and West Ham are, inconsistent but on their game they can match or beat us. I do think they are death spiralling out of this season though, must be poisonous behind the scenes.

Chelsea are in arguably a worse position than either of those clubs because of the financial situation they're in. They can't afford another poor season next year or they're really going to struggle to balance the books.

United are similar, but they make more money and don't have as much cost.

You're though,  that on their day all of them can produce a very dangerous performance.

Let's hope we get the Chelsea that's fully given up on this season after that loss.

16 hours ago, Alakagom said:

It's not nonsense its how probabilites work lmao. Spurs have incredibly tough fixtures so of course if they win few matches they don't expect things will swing. 

I'd say maybe not nonsense, but the fact they continue to swing wildly after every result suggests that results never consistently go as expected. Football will ALWAYS throw up odd scorelines, so it's kind of futile to put a percentage on a probability that almost certainly won't reflect reality.

I assume thats what @WallisFrizz meant.

5 hours ago, TheAuthority said:

I really, really want them to keep ETH and get relegated next season before going bankrupt and ceasing to exist forever. 

The Glazers then bulldoze Old Trafford and build a Center Parks or something equally as shit.

His reaction to the "reaction to" their semi final win is really small time. Moaning about people not recognising their achievement. Their achievement with the only victory of note coming against Liverpool in the Quarters in one of the 3 games where they've actually made any effort this season. Struggling to beat Newport and Coventry isn't exactly what Man United should be beating their chest about.

They've fallen so much, and although I don't think ETH is to blame,  I don't think he's the man to elevate them. They're toxic throughout,  and it's brilliant to see.

Relegation would be lovely, but sadly can't see it happening, they make too much money.